A most unnatractive situation...

[EatYerGreens]

Hi all,

as mentioned several times already, I'm in my first ever MTW campaign. That's MTW v1.00, VI not installed yet and no mods.

As the English, I've got the whole of the British Isles, Norway, Sweden, have wiped out the French, then the Danes and lately, the Aragonese.

Prior to the last of these, I got into a tussle with the HRE. They put one solitary boat in the Baltic and instead of playing sensible and building up their economy, within two or three years they decided to launch an unprovoked attack on the single barque I had there. They sank it and blockaded four countries' worth of trade with the Novgorod plus that from two provinces of their own. Vengeance was swift; I piled in, sank their boat and they've not built another one since. Battles on land broke out, them invading me (but it was me that gets the papal warning) which they lost and I took Lorraine off them too, later Switzerland but this only triggered nastiness from the Sicilians, who didn't like the look of my garrisons and thought Provence would be a good place to hit me (but they started by cutting my Med trade route near there).

The HRE generals evidently didn't approve of their Emperor's foolish ways and a civil war broke out. I had a choice of two lots of rebels to attack without being excommed. Foolishness on my own part had me attack the one with the highest income level first, rather than the one which was on the coast (Friesland). Part of the idea of being the English is to go for a trading empire, after all and monstering the coasts, landlocking everyone else seems to be the way to go.

Ultimately, I lost the landlocked province (Swabia?) to a massive HRE counter attack but, while I was still preparing to follow up on the Friesan rebels, maybe within the next year or two the &^%$ing Spanish beat me to it and invaded it by sea (we had been allied a long time, so the sea lanes were wide open). Okay, fair game. We have a mutual border and they get to expand without bothering me overtly. Now this is where things start getting really wierd...

I thought a Port would be the first thing they built but no. It went through the whole sequence of fort, watch tower, Border fort, town watch, Bowyer, spearmaker, swordsmith, farms +20%, then a trading post, and finally a port. I think this is probably what would happen if you selected 'auto-build' in the game options and I'm not sure I like the result. I lost a chunk of trade to Portugal when it rebelled. YEARS later, the Spanish still haven't built a port there - perhaps in full knowledge that it only serves to advantage me...

During all this time, it has virtually emptied its home provinces and has been moving units every year into Friesland! Egypt was long attacking them in North Africa but is a shadow of its former self and only a modest garrison is left by Spain in Morocco and another one to keep the Portuguese under control. Meanwhile, it now has about four full stacks in Friesland. When the Sicilians attacked me for no reason, this caused the Spanish to drop their alliance and things are getting tense.

I had time to build a chapter house in Flanders and launched a crusade to try and suck up as many of these troops as possible. I only got about 4 'free' units, added some low-loyalty units of my own to make it 600-odd, plonked it in Friesland and got the number up to 1100+. I didn't know what would happen if I waited too long to move it any further and I promptly took it by sea to Algeria, with an ultimately hopeless target of reaching Palestine (a Jihad on Provence is coming the other way.... don't ask!). The Spanish were quickly back to four full stacks, in spite of this ruse.

The crusade moves to Tunisia and I've put a backup force of potentially rebellious generals into Algeria, not really expecting them to outlast the Jihad. I wanted to get a 2-valour spy trained up by assassin-catching in Algeria but found the trade route which worked okay for the armies (one-way only, no port there!!) does not work for agents, so he has to go to the nearest port - Spanish-held Granada - and then through Morocco.

No sooner than he gets there, he sends word to me that the Spanish are mobilising for a major attack and this is to be against the English!!! It's due next year or the year after next and my Fortress in Wessex is three years from completion (due in 1300)....

So, this is the 'most unattractive situation' I refer to. Spain has three ships in the North sea (seems they're too stupid to extend trade route to Norway and Baltic?) which at least narrows the options for where I should defend. Most of my forces were defending borders on the continent and I've had to build more troops for home defence now. Potentially, he could attack Scotland, Northumbria, Mercia and Wessex simultaneously, with a good chance of winning all four.

I know full well that, in fact, what it will do is put all four stacks into one target province. It doesn't even need to win - simply initiating the blockade from the North Sea to the Straits of Gibraltar alone will cripple what's left of my economy. I've a feeling it will go for Flanders, currently pulling in 2300+ per year and with only 1.5 stacks to defend it. That income is more than my annual profits. The only upside is that much of Flanders' value is from trade to Spanish provinces and likewise his trade income is coming from my ports around Britain and France (I could easily demolish two or three imports-only ones right now and just live with the mobility problems for a few years if it stands a chance of suddenly putting them in an overspend situation), so they should lose more than they will actually gain. Peculiar how sea invasions destroy the port in the process, if successful. The one thing required to resupply and/or pull out if things don't go well....

I think I stand a good chance of sinking much of their fleet after they start a war; any losses I sustain will help cut my running costs down to size and I may be able to recoup losses on land after some time and effort. My ships have been sinking 1 or 2 Egyptian Dhows almost every year for quite some time and recent naval agression by the Sicilians has just given them even more target practice. I have two 4-star admirals, two 3-stars, one 2-star and several of my freshly built boats are starting at 1-star level spontaneously.

I don't think I have sufficient time to obliterate my crusade, deliberately lose Algeria and let the Jihad on Provence prompt the Spanish to send troops back home before it launches this attack on me. That will take more than four years, even if it presses on without siegeing me. I just thought it was really wierd for the AI to keep on sending huge numbers of troops into one tiny, next-to-worthless province, remote from home, leaving minimal garrisons behind and no way to ship anything back home once the mutual blockade starts. What the hell are they up to, I have to ask?

About all I can do in my next turn is get my heirs overseas before I lose the landbridge completely. If I get four stacks arriving in Wessex I either have to abandon the province completely (demolish everything now to get some cashback and risk the invasion arriving elsewhere after all) or risk my faction being entirely wiped out from the king and princes being under seige.

Then again, what about 'Royal blood' generals, who are not in line for the throne as long as a King and princes are still about? Do they become rebels, or can they take over as king in their own right, if the worst should happen?

Oh, before anyone suggests that I should pre-empt their potential seaborne invasion of Britain by declaring war first (I could attack Morocco from Algeria without losing sleep over the troublesome generals I posted there or go all out on their fleet) to ensure a blockade... I am currently at war with the Egyptians, the HRE and the Sicilians. In spite of repeated attempts, none of these will accept a ceasefire. I wanted to keep the Aragonese in the game but their alliances and the war they declared on me made alliances impossible, so they had to go.... I have no allies at all now and no other faction will accept one, either due to their own alliances with the ones I happen to be at war with, or just due to the lack of influence of my current king.

Until my spy piped up, I had been planning an invasion of Saxony via Denmark. I thought I should go ahead regardless and hope the pincer on Friesland might make the Spanish think twice about their next move. I'd even placed the army pieces in Saxony before quitting the game and saving but I'm now thinking of making it into a 'bluff' mobilisation and shipping them back to Flanders and Britain while I still have the chance.... With luck, the extra numbers will cause the Spanish to spend at least three more years moving yet more troops in to assure their victory. The fortress will let me get away with a minimal garrison in Wessex and to be able to defend better elsewhere. The castle in Flanders itself was only completed a couple of years ago and I may be able to garrison and redeploy, taking that into account. Especially as I've found out how costly castle assaults can be in MTW.

In the meantime, does anyone else have any better ideas?